Life goes on

Hi everyone,

Just a few quick updates… Life keeps on plugging away after the earthquake but the affects we fear will still linger for a long time. There is an estimated 400 families now here from Port Au Prince and most of them came with nothing so there is a lot of pressure on their families here in Terrier Rouge to feed them and provide for them. This is not easy since people living here already struggle to feed their own large families. A few days ago we saw a food handout set up by the UN. There was barbwire fencing to keep people in line and there were UN officers with those shields they use during riots to keep the crowd under control. The whole process seemed very organized and calm though and I think people were thrilled to get a little support.

Some schools have started to reopen. But not all the children have returned to school yet, we hear that a lot of the parents are still nervous about sending their kids to school in a big building, for fear of another quake. We are still unsure of what this all means for the kids here from Port Au Prince, since school there will not open until March and many of these families do not necessarily plan to go back to Port Au Prince, since they have no home to go back to. The schools in Terrier Rouge can take some new students but not all. The church across the street from us has been having lots of special memorial type services in the evenings. We have enjoyed sitting up on our roof listening to the singing and drumming. The other evening we heard the singing start down the road, and hundreds of people flooded the streets carrying candles and they ended their march at the church. It really was a beautiful and powerful sight.

These last few weeks have been very busy for us both. Meredith got to work closely with a US group doing cataract surgeries and helped them with translating and even got to scrub in and watch a surgery. The clinic has been busier than ever and she continues to head out to Paulette once a week to help run the small clinic out there.

Peter has been living and breathing rabbits. He is working with a village outside of town and an organization in Cap Haitian to try set up some other families with rabbits too. We think it is a great animal for Haiti because it can eat only weeds, reproduces like a … well …a rabbit, its meat is some of the healthiest, and there is nothing sweeter than rabbit poo for the garden. Stay tuned for more rabbit updates and how you can get involved too!

We planted some roof top containers so we hope to be getting some fresh greens in the future. Peter’s garden continues to grow, all of his cilantro was sold at the market, and his tomato plants look beautiful! We got to eat some fresh green beans a little while ago. We are both looking forward to the idea of eating more vegetables! The weather continues to be hot hot hot. Everyone says this is the hottest February they can remember, lucky us. We fear that our little winter has already come and gone, it was 88 degrees the other night as we tried to go to sleep with no fan. Since the earthquake we seem to not have power as often. So we ran outside dumped a bucket of cool water over us then got right in bed and tried not to move. We may have said this before but there really is something amazing about bathing outside in the tropics in February under a blanket of starts, we will try to get a picture of our shower up on our blog so you all can picture it.

Love, Meredith and Peter